AutonomyĪ principal engineer has full autonomy with excellent communication structure. They make sure they follow your processes and whenever these processes stop working from them, they recommend and incorporate changes across the organisation, instead of abandoning it.
Principal software engineer vs architect code#
You can see their name on numerous tech design working groups, code reviews or see them whiteboarding a problem with a few folks in the room. Principal engineers are role modelling the way your company approach engineering, following your principles, values and culture. They often proactively pair with engineers in multiple teams to introduce patterns and technologies that they advocate for. They are inspiring and people need to get inspired. AMAs, All Hands, demos, wide audience and targeted audience for leadership - principals should speak and communicate publicly and should be visible. You will often see principal on the front line of the company. They are able to lead through functions or at least partner with and get alignment through more organisation focused leader like a director of engineering. They make sure that we build cohesive strategies and execution and to do this, they need to make sure that product, design and business are aligned too. They are principal engineers but they don’t work in silos. This leadership is backed by feedback on every level - you will hear this from junior engineer collaborating with a principal for a few weeks and from their experienced engineering manager at the same time. These areas will often be formalised as groups - your organisational structure almost certainly represents strategic areas. They should focus on the strategic area that almost always will map to multiple teams. LeadershipĪ principal engineer is first and foremost a leadership position. If they move around the org too often, there is a risk that they will act more like expert executor, not a strategic leader.
Similarly to other leadership positions like director of engineering, it takes months to see the change and long-term impact of a leader. Principal engineers should be partnering with a consistent set of teams over time. It’s better to say that it’s one of the most experienced leaders in the organisation that has flexed ability and space to go deep in engineering. It is not a linear progression of technical skillset. However, it’s a big gap between senior engineer and this level. Elevator pitchĪ principal engineer is the most experienced individual contributor. There is a big overlap, but there is plenty of my opinions here that never were (or not yet) solidified at Intercom.
Being principal engineer is not an easy task and everyone who is on the trajectory to get there should embrace the big shift of what is the most impactful and valuable for such an experienced role - leadership over execution.ĭisclaimer: this is not official guidance that we use at Intercom. It’s an ultimate step in the engineer career ladder that gives great recognition for folks in that role but also the highest expectations for their performance. A principal engineer usually means one of the most experienced individual contributors in the organisation.
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